Before Kaepernick, There was the Black 14

   "If I want to protest, I'll do it on my own time." -- Tommy Tucker, white linebacker from Salt Lake City on the 1969 Wyoming Cowboy football team.

    They call them the Black 14. Fourteen members of the Cowboys were Black. Their team was 4-0 on the season, ranked 16th in the nation. Some thought they were as good a team as their was in the land. 

    Then, the day before Wyoming was to play BYU, the 14 players approached Coach Lloyd Eaton to ask him if they could wear armbands to protest against BYU. Listen to the words of their teammate again now that you know that. "If I want to protest, I'll do it on my own time."

   And, think of the Colin Kaepernick protests. Think of the NFL of this year. Think of the NBA players. And, have the words of Tommy Tucker wafting through it all. "If I want to protest, I'll do it on my own time." Same sentiment many fans have today. 

   "Back then, we were looked at just as they look at Kaepernick now," says one of the Black 14 in an ESPN video on YouTube titled, "The legacy of Wyoming's 'Black 14' football players and their protests."

   Just as Kaepernick never has played again since the season he chose to protest, so the Black 14 lost their jobs. Coach Eaton kicked them off the team rather than let them wear their armbands. 

   The Cowboys came into the BYU game ranked 16th in the nation. They defeated the Cougars 40-7, and then bettered San Jose State the next week, 16-7.

    But everything fell apart from there. They dropped their final four games. And then, the next year they went 1-9 and Eaton lost his job.